SCREEN | 'Certain Women' for Uncertain Times

"Just saw people goin' in."

Oregon filmmaker Kelly Reichardt experty tells the tender Midwest stories of four different women in her latest indie drama, Certain Women. Based on the short story collection of Guggenheim fellow Maile Meloy, Half in Love and Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, Reichardt's film (her sixth) is a deliberately paced character adaptation of small moments and deep emotions.

REEL | 'The Lost City of Z' Finds Glory

"A man's reach should exceed his grasp."

Moody independent New York filmmaker James Gray ventures into the jungle for his meticulously lush adaptation of journalist David Grann's biography of legendary British explorer Lt. Col. Percy Fawcett. The Lost City of Z (pronounced "Zed" in the Queen's English) is a thoroughly mannered and enlightening cinematic journey about maddening obsession, righteousness, and one's undying ambitions during the turn of the century leading into World War I.

GENRE | Anne Hathaway Meets Monster – 'Colossal'

Spanish filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo gets very weird in his (filmed in Vancouver) sci-fi comedy meets alcoholism drama with monsters, Colossal. Anne Hathaway plays Gloria, a loser alcoholic who gets dumped and moves back home, grappling with her demons in comic fashion while realizing she's somehow responsible for manifesting a giant kaiju monster destroying the city of Seoul, South Korea all the way across the world.

BEERFEST | Revisit x Strathcona Beer Company x East Van

Strathcona—East Vancouver's Strathcona Beer Company, after an extended period of many months under a limited lounge license last year after opening, has been enjoying its full-blown tasting room status for the last few months while serving an expanded lineup of their craft beers.

REEL | 89th Annual Oscars x 2017 Predictions

Picture: La La Land (Winner: Moonlight)
Director: Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Actor: Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Actress: Emma Stone, La La Land
Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Supporting Actress: Viola Davis, Fences
Original Screenplay: Kenneth Lonnergan, Manchester by the Sea
Adapted Screenplay: Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney, Moonlight
Animated Feature: Zootopia

REEL | '20th Century Women' Run the World

"Wondering if you're happy is a great shortcut to just being depressed."

Low-key filmmaker Mike Mills continues to mine his personal family history for rich cinematic material. Where Beginners focused on his closeted, elderly father's life as a newly out but dying gay man, 20th Century Women is loosely inspired by his middle-aged, late-in-life mother and the many women around who helped raised him as a teenager in 1979 Santa Barbara. It's a moving portrait about the redefining role of women and mothers set against the thick of the second-wave feminist movement.

REEL | Not Lovin' It – Michael Keaton Becomes 'The Founder'

Director John Lee Hancock's dramatization of McDonald's real-life corporate saga and history starring Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc, the titular and disputed The Founder, is a well-acted but problematic adaptation of the all-American business story. Keaton does his best, but Hancock’s bleak version of fast food inception, as written by Robert Siegel, is far too straightforwardly told and entirely too focused on the duplicitous Kroc's point of view. It's a morally complex yet simplistically executed story about visionaries.

REEL | Dev Patel Roars – 'Lion'

The real-life story of Indian-Australian Saroo Brierley and his memoir A Long Way Home is an emotionally earnest journey about family and identity. In Lion, Dev Patel starring as Saroo—alongside his younger self played by a fantastic and precocious Sunny Pawar—proves to be a striking lead and vessel for director Garth Davis' adaptation of a lost boy turned man separated from his family and raised far away in his transplanted home of Australia.

REEL | 'Hidden Figures' Does the Math of Space and Race

"Here at NASA, we all pee the same colour."

Hidden Figures tells the true story of three female African-American mathematicians (or human "colored computers") and their essential role in successfully executing the 1960s manned space program at NASA during the early days of the space race set against the backdrop of segregation. Co-writer/director Theodore Melfi has assembled a very pleasing if entirely conventional film based on the non-fiction book by Margot Lee Shetterly.

GRUB | Breakfast Club x Jam Cafe x Crosstown

Crosstown—Victoria's wildly popular Jam Cafe has quickly become another Vancouver beacon in its still relatively new Beatty Street location (the original home and location of Café Medina) over the past year. To see for ourselves, we sampled our own breakfast feast.

REEL | Martin Scorsese Prays for 'Silence'

"The price for your glory is their suffering."

Silence is legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese's long-gestating, over quarter-century passion project based on the 1966 novel about "hidden Christians" written by Catholic-Japanese author Shūsaku Endō. The work of historical fiction revolves around two Portuguese Jesuit priests and their mission in seventeenth-century, shogun-era Japan and the violent persecution they face after Christianity is outlawed in the country.

REEL | Top 10 Films of 2016

Each film reviewed where linked below:

1) The Handmaiden * (dir. Park Chan-wook)

2) Moonlight * (dir. Barry Jenkins)

3) O.J.: Made in America ¹ (dir. Ezra Edelman)

4) La La Land (dir. Damien Chazelle)

5) 20th Century Women (dir. Mike Mills)

6) Hunt for the Wilderpeople (dir. Taika Waititi)

7) Arrival (dir. Denis Villeneuve)

8) Sing Street (dir. John Carney)

9) The Lobster * (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)

10) Toni Erdmann * (dir. Maren Ade)

REEL | Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone Sing – 'La La Land' x WFF 2016

"People love what other people are passionate about."

La La Land is the kind of modern musical that people who tend to hate musicals will likely still enjoy. Whiplash filmmaker Damien Chazelle takes Old Hollywood tropes of breaking into song, dance numbers, jazz standards, glitz and glamour to make a very self-conscious and contemporary Los Angeles story of romance and creative expression.

FEAST | Holiday Menu x Minami Restaurant x Yaletown

Stephanie Wan

Yaletown—(December 13, 2016) Minami Restaurant of Aburi Restaurants is currently offering a special five-course holiday menu. Filled with special ingredients and pairings, we were invited to sample this east meets west meal, best enjoyed alongside a trio of their finest sakes, to celebrate the festive winter season in fine Japanese culinary fashion.

SCREEN | 'Barry' Dreams of Obama's College Years

"The trick is to sound just white enough."

It's telling how the name "Obama" is never mentioned and "Barack" only a few times in passing in Barry. The film is a soulful, semi-biographical film about the first black president's formative college years famously covered in his first memoir, Dreams of My Father. Starring Australian actor Devon Terrell and directed by Vice documentary filmmaker Vikram Gandhi, the film is a fictionalized origin story of the future world leader's humble origins.

REEL | 'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story' Starts A Rebellion

"Rebellions are built on hope."

The revitalization of the Star Wars franchise continues with the awkwardly titled Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the first anthology, non-"Episode" standalone entry into the Lucasfilm saga. The prequel, directed by Gareth Edwards, takes place directly before Episode VI - A New Hope and focuses on the retrieval of the Death Star plans mentioned in the opening crawl. Rogue One is a film undeniably about the act of war and rebellion as it makes the case for fighting back.

GATHER | TWG Tea Salon & Boutique x Grand Opening

Financial District—(December 8, 2016) TWG Tea Salon & Boutique opened their first official North American location and celebrated by throwing a massive grand opening party. The Singaporean-based luxury tea brand, established in 2008, takes over the recently closed Urban Tea Merchant space with original proprietors Tom and Karinna James becoming exclusive TWG Canadian franchise partners and distributors under their VanSing Distribution Group.

REEL | Natalie Portman Deconstructs 'Jackie'

A biopic of an iconic American figure directed by a Chilean filmmaker—making his English-language debut—and filmed mostly in Paris with a French crew, Jackie is a stirring and enlightening yet wholly unconventional portrait of the former first lady. A sensational Natalie Portman stars in the performance of her life as Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy in the immediate period before and after the assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy.

SCREEN | Rebecca Hall Signs Off – 'Christine'

Rebecca Hall gives a towering performance as the tragic, real-life Florida reporter Christine Chubbuck who infamously took her own life live on air mid-report. Antonio Campos directs Christine as a sympathetic portrait of an awkward and unstable but driven young woman set against the Nixon era of changing local news.

KAFFE | The Paper Crane Coffee x Mount Pleasant

Mount Pleasant—The Paper Crane Coffee shop is East Vancouver's latest, slightly out of the way neighbourhood cafe located on East Broadway.